Page 26 of A Night of Secret Surrender
Had Celeste just propositioned him with her body? Did the weight of lust and a quick tumble mean nothing at all to her save for a momentary relief of an all-consuming emptiness? He took a deep drink of red wine. Perhaps he had misheard things in his sickness and read her wrongly in a way he seldom did with people? Usually he was so much more certain than he felt now. Resolving not to make more of it with an answer, he turned and searched through the shelves nearby which were full of artefacts.
‘Is there a razor here? An old one of your father’s?’ August Fournier had been a man who had always presented himself impeccably.
Nodding, she pointed to the room he had seen her come out of when they’d first arrived here. It was a bath chamber and there was a large wicker basket containing an oddment of clothes next to a basin. Looking at himself in the mirror, Shay felt strangely disconnected and scattered, a bloom of red on both cheeks and his eyes bright with fever. He wondered about the properties in the medicines of Caroline Debussy, for his wound and the ache in his leg felt lighter, less distinct.
The harlot’s dress Celeste had been wearing in the torture room of Les Chevaliers lay across the top of the basket. Rummaging through, he found other things that August must have once worn and kept as disguises. He was pleased to see the brown habit of a monk among them.
The razor was old, but it would be sharp enough to do the trick. He wished his hands did not shake from the fever, but he steadied his left elbow against a shelf beneath the mirror and set to work. The corked bottle filled with water nearby was just what he needed.
Ten minutes later he smiled at his reflection. The Pyrenees lay to the south through hundreds of miles of French soil. He could follow the river which would lead him into the hills. The French presence would be less obvious there, caught as they were protecting their interests in northern Spain and Portugal.
And if Celeste Fournier elected to come with him, even with all her nonsense on the freedoms of lust, he would be pleased.
For so very long he had been sad. But since meeting her here in Paris, his melancholy had been lessened and despite such jeopardy there was a new tingling of excitement. The promise of something he could give no name to. He prayed to God that they might escape from the city into freedom and safety.
The knock on the door had him turning as it opened.
‘I thought perhaps you might be...’ She stepped in, her eyes widening at the baldness of his pate.
‘You thought I might be using the razor on my throat instead of my scalp?’
A dance of lightness in blue eyes was the only reply.
‘No matter what happens to me here in France, I would fight for my life, Celeste. I hope you would do the same.’
Her mother’s demise came to mind and he could see she had been thinking along the same lines. He cursed Mary Elizabeth Faulkner Fournier anew.
‘Perhaps when you are ready to leave I will come with you, Major, for it is raining harder than I have heard it do so in a long while and that might make it safer. I can’t bring the medicines, though, for if we are searched...’
‘I’ll change the bandage before we depart and leave it at that. The cheese and bread can come, but leave the pistols behind. Bring your blade only.’
‘I am not sure if I could pass any close inspection, Major.’
‘Then let us pray it will not come to that.’
* * *
His voice was changing even as he spoke into the pious, humble cadence of a servant of the Lord. With his closely shaved head, she could now see the light colour of his hair was back. In the sun it would show blond and the tips of his eyelashes were almost a white-gold.
‘Is there a safe box here? Something no one else would find easily if they were to search the place?’
‘Under the hearth,’ she replied and led him over to the fireplace. A quick catch of stone and a space opened, a space large enough even for a small person.
‘Papa had it fashioned for me.’
‘Did you ever use it?’
‘No.’
God, everything she ever told him of her life communicated other things to him as well. He cursed August and Mary Elizabeth Fournier for their careless guardianship of a daughter who should have been safer.
‘Put the pistols in here along with your harlot’s dress and the white wig.’ He had gathered up the strands of dark hair that he had shorn off himself and placed them in a twist of paper. These would go in there, too.
‘Let them guess who we are now.’ He jammed the medicines in the hole as well, keeping two twists of paper which he stuffed into the bag. The old marked bandage that had been around his thigh was also carefully hidden. Weakness was something he wanted to keep concealed. One sniff of weakness and the dogs of war would be after him with even more tenacity.
Finding a sheet of paper and a quill pen, he laid it on the writing desk.
‘Make up a fictitious name and address. Tell the recipient that you will be leaving for the north coast and that you will be there in two weeks if all goes well. Sign it with the name you are known as here and put as high a note as you can afford inside. I’d give you some, but they took everything in my pockets. The money should distract them. When you finish, date it and hide it in the bookshelf. They will find it.’
